Overview

Kitten is a lightweight kernel (LWK) compute node operating system, similar to previous LWKs such as SUNMOS, Puma, Cougar, and Catamount. Kitten distinguishes itself from these prior LWKs by providing a Linux-compatible user environment, a more modern and extendable codebase, and a virtual machine monitor capability via Palacios that allows full-featured guest operating systems to be loaded on-demand. For a more detailed introduction to Kitten, please see this presentation:

Be warned – there are rough edges and missing functionality (a polished job load mechanism springs to mind). However, there is also a solid foundation in place on which to build and experiment with new system software ideas. We have found that LWKs in general often allow more effort to be directed at the true issue being explored, rather than working around complex Linux kernel internals and maintaining non-standard Linux patches.